Rockstar built a Los Angeles that contains all the highlights (or most of the popular ones anyway) and skips the rest. And as this is a video game, you can drive across LA in about 10-12 minutes, maybe less on the freeways. So itâ€™s clearly a work of fantasy.

The city looks great as you fly past it at 140 mph. The weather and time of day change as youâ€™re racing, so if you have to rerun a race a few times to get the fastest time, itâ€™ll get darker or lighter as the day progresses.

The street lights and headlights twinkle and the shadows loom. The traffic is varied enough that racing the same event again will result in not just less or more light, but different traffic patterns.

You play as a standard, street-racing newbie, buying a cheap car and getting your feet wet. Thereâ€™s a story of sorts, mostly a narrative of your contact with various characters. Youâ€™ve got a T-Mobile Sidekick (lots of product placement in this one) and a buddy named Karol (Everybodyâ€™s got an Eastern-European secondary character these days).More on Midnight Club Los Angeles on the jump